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Where's My Liver ?

Where's My Liver

An Ontario Ghost Story
retold by
S.E. Schlosser

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 “Go straight to the store and don’t fool around,” his mother said sternly as she handed over the money. “Your father’s boss is coming to dinner tonight and we’re having his favorite meal of liver and onions. It’s important that we make a good impression, so get the best liver they’ve got.”

“I will, Ma,” Tommy sulked. His mother had really been after him since he brought home a failing report card.Tommy grabbed his bicycle from the garage and rode down then street.  Then saw his friend Chad. “Come on, Tommy!” Chad called. “The gang’s playing baseball over at the park, and we need a pitcher.”

Immediately, all thoughts of his errand fled from Tommy’s mind. The boys headed towards the park. Tommy pitched a no-hitter to win the game for his team, but by the time it was over, it was dark. Then Tommy remembered his errand. “The liver!” he gasped. “I’ve got to get to the store!”
But, all the local groceries were closed. “My mom’s going to kill me,” he gasped. First the bad report card, and now this! He would be grounded for life.

As he rode home past the cemetery, he got an idea. It was an awful idea, but it would save him from the even more awful fate that awaited him if he came home without a liver. His great-uncle had died a few days ago and had been buried in the cemetery. What harm would it do to remove it? His uncle certainly didn’t need it anymore.

Tommy hurried home as silently as he could and got his father’s shovel. He returned to the cemetery and began digging up his great-uncle’s grave. 

That night, his mother cooked up the liver and onions and the boss raved about the meal and had such a good time that he didn’t leave until quite late.

Tommy went to bed that night relieved he had gotten away with it. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow but woke with a start soon after, sure that he had heard a voice.

 “Where’s my liver?” A ghostly voice rose up from the staircase, deep and guttural. Tommy gasped in fear and flung himself under the covers as the thud of heavy footsteps reached the top of the steps.

Thump. Thump. Thump. The footsteps drew nearer, until they reached Tommy’s door. “ Who’s got my liver?” the horrible voice asked again.

“Go away. Go away,” Tommy whispered repeatedly. His whole body trembled in terror as once more the voice asked, “Where’s my liver? Who’s got my liver?”

Sheer terror made him suddenly bold. Tommy threw back the covers and found the shriveled white face of his great-uncle right above him. “We ate your liver!” he shouted.

“I know you did, Tommy,” the rotting corpse of his great-uncle said softly, stretching out his bony hands toward the boy’s shaking body. Tommy screamed.

The next morning, Tommy’s parents discovered their son lying dead on top of his bed. His liver had been ripped right out of his body, but the autopsy proved that the boy had already died of fright before his liver was removed.

Ghost Story :)

Don't Turn on the Light

retold by S.E. Schlosser

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She commandeered the room in the basement of her dorm as soon as she realized she would have to pull an all-nighter in order to prepare for tomorrow’s final exam. Her roommate, Jenna, liked to get to bed early, so she packed up everything she thought she would need and went downstairs to study . . . and study . . . and study some more.

It was two o’clock, when she realized that she’d left one of the textbooks upstairs on her bed. With a dramatic sigh, she rose, and climbed the stairs slowly to her third-floor dorm room.
The lights were dim in the long hallway, and the old boards creaked under her weary tread. She reached her room and turned the handle as softly as she could, pushing the door open just enough to slip inside, so that the hall lights wouldn’t wake her roommate.

The room was filled with a strange, metallic smell. She frowned a bit, her arms breaking out into chills. There was a strange feeling of malice in the room, as if a malevolent gaze were fixed upon her.  It was a mind trick; the all-nighter was catching up with her.

 She could hear Jenna breathing on the far side of the room—a heavy sound, almost as if she had been running. Jenna must have picked up a cold during the last tense week before finals.

She crept along the wall until she reached her bed, groping among the covers for the stray history textbook. In the silence, she could hear a steady drip-drip-drip sound. She sighed silently. Facilities would have to come to fix the sink in the bathroom…again.

 Her fingers closed on the textbook. She picked it up softly and withdrew from the room as silently as she could.

Relieved to be out of the room, she hurried back downstairs, collapsed into an overstuffed chair and studied until six o’clock.  She finally decided that enough was enough. If she slipped upstairs now, she could get a couple hours’ sleep before her nine o’clock exam.

The first of the sun’s rays were beaming through the windows as she slowly slid the door open, hoping not to awaken Jenna. Her nose was met by an earthy, metallic smell a second before her eyes registered the scene in her dorm room. Jenna was spread-eagled on top of her bed against the far wall, her throat cut from ear to ear and her nightdress stained with blood. Two drops of blood fell from the saturated blanket with a drip-drip noise that sounded like a leaky faucet.

Scream after scream poured from her mouth, but she couldn’t stop herself any more than she could cease wringing her hands. All along the hallway, doors slammed and footsteps came running down the passage.

Within moments other students had gathered in her doorway, and one of her friends gripped her arm with a shaking hand and pointed a trembling finger toward the wall. Her eyes widened in shock at what she saw. Then she fainted into her friend’s arms.

On the wall above her bed, written in her roommate’s blood, were the words: “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?”

Story :)

Black Magic

Excerpt from Spooky Massachusetts

Retold by S.E. Schlosser 

Listen to the podcast of this story

Mad Henry was a hermit who lived alone in a decrepit mansion at the edge of town.  Rumors were rife about the wild-eyed man.  Some folks said that he was a magician who called upon the powers of darkness to wreck havoc upon his neighbors.  Others called him a mad doctor who could restore life to foul corpses from the local cemetery.  No respectable citizen in town had anything to do with Mad Henry
 

Then one year a new family moved to town with a lovely daughter, Rachel, who caught Mad Henry’s eye. He showered the maiden with gifts—goblets of pure gold, necklaces of pearl, and a pot of daisies that never dropped a single petal. Despite the gifts, Rachael fell in love with another, Geoffrey, a handsome young man just home from university. A week after meeting they eloped, leaving behind a stunned Mad Henry.
 

When Rachael and Geoffrey returned from the elopement, they threw a big ball and invited everyone in town. While Rachel was waltzing with her father, she heard a  clap of thunder. Lightning flashed again and again. Suddenly, the double doors blew open and a breeze whirled in, bringing with it the smell of dead, decaying things. Mad Henry loomed in the doorway, pupils gleaming red with anger. He was followed by the grotesque figures of the dead, who came marching two by two into the room. Their eye sockets glowed with blue fire as they surrounded the room.
Two of the corpses captured Geoffrey and threw him down at the feet of their lord. Red eyes gleaming, Mad Henry drew a silver-bladed knife and casually cut the bridegroom’s throat from ear to ear. Rachel screamed and ran forward, pushing through the foul, stinking corpses of the dead, and flung herself upon her dying husband.
 

“Kill us both,” she cried desperately.
 

But Mad Henry  plucked the lass out of the pool of blood surrounding her dead husband and carried her out into the thundering night. Behind him, the army of the dead turned from the grizzly scene and followed their master. The sounds of thunder and lightning faded away as the alchemist and his dead companions disappeared into the dark night.
 

Geoffrey’s father and Rachael’s father gathered a small mob and followed the evil hermit, intent upon saving Rachel.  When they searched Mad Henry’s house, they found it completely empty save for a light, which shone from a series of mysterious globes that bobbed near the ceiling of each room. Mad Henry had vanished.
 

Search parties scoured the countryside for days, but turned up nothing. Geoffrey was buried in the local cemetery, and the dance hall was torn down. No one in town spoke about what had happened, and no one dared imagine what had become of poor Rachel.
 

A year to the day after the ball, a timid knock sounded upon the door of Rachael’s parents’ home. When her father opened it, he saw a gaunt, gray figure on the stoop. Her eyes were dull with exhaustion and pain. It was Rachel! Her tongue had been cut out so she couldn’t speak.  But when she produced a knife from her tattered garments—the knife with a silver blade that they had last seen in the hands of Mad Henry— the gleam of satisfaction in Rachel’s eyes told them that the streaks of blood that coated the knife were those of Mad Henry. That night, Rachel died in her sleep with a peaceful smile upon her ravaged face.